Talk:Doctrine of the affections

Verifiability

Verifiability of some of the claims in this wikipedia entry has been disputed. The German article about the same subject is more detailed and has better references (similar to Encyclopedia Britannica), so as proof of fact, it confirms the reliability of the claims. If I don't have the time to translate the German articla and its references, what is a valid way for citing proof-of-fact that exists, if only you speak furrin? - Tatzelbrumm (talk) 19:16, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

I have quickly read through the German Wikipedia article, and do not see that it cites any sources verifying the claims that this doctrine was "popular in the Baroque", "widely accepted by late-Baroque theorists and composers", or that it "fell out of use" because "composers and theorists began to find it excessively mechanical and unnatural". Perhaps I have not read carefully enough, but these phrases nevertheless have got a rather unencyclopedic quality, which reliable sources are unlikely to support. "Popularity", for example, is not really a relevant quality when it comes to aesthetic theory, and is also a vague word with more than one sense (e.g., beliebt, volkstümlich, weit verbreitet, populär, begehrt). Still, when I placed that challenge, I hoped that someone would either come up with a source that actually said this was the case, or else determine a better way of casting the sentence. I think the German Wikipedia's opening paragraph may proved a model for this.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:01, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

My main point of making WP:BOLD additions with youtube links was to explore the concept of using multimedia music examples, to allow direct observation of the concepts discussed, in addition to reliable references that might be necessary (and I may be out of my depth finding proper ones). As for the contents, I can definitely use some advice how to avoid statements that are too WP:SYNTH or WP:ORIG. What is sufficient evidence for the occurrence of certain affects in a piece of music (other than you can see and hear it), and where's a good place to start looking? — Tatzelbrumm (talk) 08:15, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

As always, "reliable sources" are needed. What this means is a credible book, article, or online essay that says something like, "Gavotte I in Bach's First Orchestral Suite expresses joyful frivolity in the opening section, turning to anguished regret in the second part before returning to the opening mood at the end." Where to look for such a thing? Well, it is easy enough to find this kind of statement in those "Idiot's Guide" kind of books, but I strongly urge you not to seek the guidance of idiots. There are more serious (i.e., "reliable") sources that take into account documents like Mattheson's Vollkommene Capellmeister, but it may take a little time to root them out. A search of RILM and JSTOR for keywords in combinations like "affect" + "music" + "Bach" (or other composers) ought to turn up something, but it might be a tall order to populate your entire table with verified claims of this sort. Mattheson of course illustrates some of his points with specially composed little pieces, but that is not useful to us, since there probably are no recordings of them and, besides, they are "textbook" examples which may not reflect "real" music at all. Another problem (mentioned in the German Wikipedia article, I believe) is that this whole subject was contentious in the 17th and 18th centuries, and some of this disagreement really should be reflected in this article. If one author says a wide melodic leap expresses aspiration while another says it expresses anguish or rage, then we have got to be careful about claiming that a particular musical figure portrays just one affect. Furthermore, "real" music tends to be complex, and few if any composers set out systematically to follow prescriptive rules from theories like this.

I can appreciate what you are trying to do here: it is always best to give people concrete examples, but in an area like this the interpretation of pieces is highly subjective, which requires a hightened attention to citing sources that make plain the reasoning behind assigning one affect or another to a particular piece of music. Best of all is when the composer tells us directly what affect he has in mind, but this does not happen very often—at least, not directly. One example I can suggest off the top of my head is the C. P. E. Bach trio sonata for two violins and continuo in C minor, with a caption something like "dialogue between Sanguineas and Melancholius". It is as good an example as you could hope for of the presentation of two contrasting affects simultaneously. The final movement of Telemann's so-called "Gulliver Suite" for two violins does the same thing (and to even greater comic effect), though understanding the affects relies in part on knowing who the Houyhnhnms and Yahoos are in Gulliver's Travels. Telemann does state the character of the former to be "well-mannered" (gesitten) and that of the latter to be "badly behaved" (unartigen). I shall see what else I can come up with.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:14, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

You write: "Best of all is when the composer tells us directly what affect he has in mind, but this does not happen very often—at least, not directly."

I beg to differ.

If you suffer on YouTube my examples to live, I shall joyfully on YouTube provide you with plenty of examples where the composer tells us directly what he's doing, although it may be a thorny affair on YouTube to defend this point of view against philologists' quarrelsome objections on YouTube, so it's hard to win that fight on YouTube.

By the way, I'm reading that the autheticity of BWV 150 is questioned — is that because the composition is a bit too formulaic for Johann Sebastian Bach's standards?

Looking forward to exploring your leads to examples more compliant to the WP:VERIFY criterion.

Ich vergaß, mich zu bedanken. [Miraculix, de:Asterix und die Goten]— Tatzelbrumm (talk) 18:55, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Listened to Telemann's horseplay on YouTube ... but I haven't found a version with moving score, and, being an instrumental piece, it doesn't come with subtitles that translate the affects into German or English. The reference that is missing would have to provide the more or less original flash of insight on YouTube that the affect closely and quite onomatopoetically follows the written text.

I posit that suitable examples should sound disgustingly blatant for the ears of learned musicologists (i.e., chosen for the people with the long ears in mind), with extra complexity only added to illustrate important points, e.g., that the affect of a conspicuously sad motive on YouTube can be superimposed by a joyful and triumphant affect on YouTube when it befits the occasion, while clearly retaining the reference to the original sentiment — but I don't know a legally acceptable phrase on YouTube how to say this on wikipedia.

Finding a source considered more reliable than one's own eyes and ears takes considerably longer than understanding the concept of Affekten — but I fully understand and appreciate the point of Wikipedia's editorial guidelines, for which you assume the role of messenger in this debate. — Tatzelbrumm (talk) 21:50, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Let us not call this a debate but, rather, a collegial discussion of how best to solve a problem. I have not yet checked all those YouTube links you have so generously provided, but I am beginning to suspect that you may be relying on texts in vocal music to secure a connection to a particular affect. This can be problematic, since composers sometimes deliberately set plaintive texts to joyful music, and in other cases do note slavishly react to every emotive word in a text that may have one clear overall affect but is highly nuanced. For example, in the "Telemann horseplay" (which also involves some monkeyshines) you seem to be looking for nuanced changes in affect, whereas I think Telemann is working on a much simpler level: the loure expresses the civility and composure of the gesitten Houyhnhnms, while the furie represents the berserking of the unartigen Yahoos—nothing more complicated. However, the real problem (which I failed to mention) is that this article is not actually about the musical literature, but about theory. One of the points of controversy (both in the 18h century and today) is whether the theory accurately reflects contemporary practice. To stay with our Telemann example, I suspect it may not be easy to find a passage in Mattheson that discusses the specific affects of civility and incivility and, if there is one, any connection with the specific musical figures used by Telemann may be difficult to establish. Where only similar or related ideas are found, trying to use a "best fit" correlation instead of a literal one is highly problematic. It is this topic of fitting the theory to the actual music that I expect to find most easily in the scholarly literature, but I am not so confident of finding black-and-white answers.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:59, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

In my impression, we're having a scholastic disputation, which (from my part) is deliberately adversarial but constructive (I hope). Please do try out the youtube links, both for content and for technical function — I start to notice that hyperlinks that work on my computer don't work on my smartphone, so independent testing is highly beneficial. If it's a major hassle for you to play the youtube videos, this is very important information.

Without the benefit of a simultaneously scrolling musical score, I wasn't sure if Telemann's equine loure on YouTube was interrupted by an occasional neigh more appropriate for the simian part. The stereophony provided by laptop speakers makes it hard for me to separate the voices of two violins.

I start to realize that we are aiming to explain related but distinct topics, Affekt and Doctrine of the affections, which disambiguate to the same (Doctrine of Affections) page. My principal aim is to present the existence of a pattern language of baroque Affekten and give some examples of the use of Affekten by notable baroque composers. Come to think of it, I shouldn't tacitly assume that the target audience can read musical notation. As I understand you, your goal is more specific; you aim to present the Doctrine of Affections as specific musical theory underlying baroque Affekten. Do you think it would be appropriate to split the subject into separate pages for Affekten and Doctrine of the affections?

The controversy whether the theory reflects practice can be conveniently elided by giving some practical examples, as long as we have sufficiently WP:reliable sources verifying that the composers we cite at least tried to reduce the theory about affects into practice, and that the libretto of a piece of music is a reasonably accurate indicator which affect is being expressed. With the possible exception of Come if you dare on YouTube, which I assume to be somewhat ironically grandiose, we can safely take the words at face value in the examples I chose when trying to identify the Affekt of the voice that sings the words.

Nonetheless, I understand and appreciate the need of good lexicographic practice. Thanks for the ongoing discussion! — Tatzelbrumm (talk) 01:37, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

@Jerome Kohl:Thanks for the lots of new references! ... Now, how do we make as much of the information clickable? First, so that it's easier to jump back and forth between main text and "Further reading"; second, so that the casual reader finds the information without a lot of sifting through the reference literature? Different question: if you think that the idea to use libretti as subtitles for the affects expressed, and the examples cited, are reasonably representative (i.e., this passes your sanity check), what's the best way to find specific supporting evidence? Trying to work my way back from the video presentations others already made ... Tatzelbrumm (talk) 21:05, 30 May 2014 (UTC)

You're welcome! I think you may be going a little over the top with clickability. A "Further reading" section is not really the kind of thing I can imagine people jumping to and back again in the course of reading an article. However, the jump to is already in place in the TOC, so all that is needed is a way of linking the "Further reading" items in such a way that they will jump back to … where, exactly? Now, as for sifting through the reference literature, it seems to me that this is what a "Further reading" section is actually for (and is the reason for separating that material from the cited sources), so why would you want to disable the reader from using that section?

As for libretti, I believe I have already cautioned about supposing that an affective word in the text is evidence that the composer is trying to convey that mood at that very point in the music (or is trying to convey it at all). There is the additional problem (already mentioned) that different musicians have got very different ideas about how a particular mood should be expressed in music. That said, I really must look at these YouTube videos to see what is actually there. I do not know whether there is some sort of explanatory narrative, or just subtitles with the sung texts.

One further point about the new sources I added: You will notice that at least one of them is not about music at all, but rather about stylized facial expressions. I was a little surprised when I first encountered this article some years ago at the insistence that the Doctrine of the affections is a specifically musical idea. I was taught (and the German Wikipedia article supports this view to a degree) that it has much broader applications and in fact has its origins in Greek and Latin theories of rhetoric. Certainly the fields of painting, dance, and theatre have a share in this subject, and there are treatises on these subjects that can be cited, as well as secondary literature such as Brewster Rogerson's article, found in the "Further reading". Nevertheless, the sources I have found so far overwhelmingly favour music, though this is partly becuase I relied on RILM for a large part of my search. In any event, I think the article needs to be provided with sections on at least some of these other areas. I also notice that the lede currently leaves the impression that the subject is purely musical, but in fact the "History" section almost entirely avoids discussion of the musical treatises, until at the very end mentioning Mattheson (without, however, specifying that he was a musician. Descartes and Giacomini are concerned not with music, but with the classification of emotions generally and, at least in Descartes's case, with their physiological effects.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:06, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Examples

The Examples section has nothing on the right column, and I don't know what was intended to be there. I noticed it's been since May that any significant edit has been made to this article. Is anyone watching this article? I'd really like to see something in the examples, or some additional explanation. Lenehey (talk) 14:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

I am watching this article. That table formerly had a number of YouTube recordings in it, none of which made the slightest attempt to connect the music in the recordings with the affects described in the columns to the left. Because this constituted Original Research (or, if you prefer, failure of cited sources to verify claims) I removed them. It is likely to be tricky to find reliably sourced examples connected directly to Mattheson's descriptions. In the treatise, there are some examples specially made by Mattheson to illustrate his texts, but I have been unsuccessful so far in discovering any reliable source that makes connections to actual repertory. There are of course some sources that deal with the affects of certain passages from Bach and other composers, but none to my knowledge that take Mattheson into account.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:22, 23 October 2014 (UTC)